#i have at least 150K points in both games so <33< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

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tomorrow.

[crescencestudio]

Devlog #33 | 07.26.23

Hi everyone!

It's only been a month (per usual) since the last devlog. But it feels like so long ago! Very weird that last devlog I hadn't even released Intertwine yet. But here we are, back with another one!

Before we get into things, I want to extend the biggest thank you to everyone who has played and supported intertwine!

if you havent played yet, here it is. this is me on my knees asking because i am quite proud of it and what our team accomplished in two months!

in the almost month it's been out, we stand at almost 15k total plays and 200+ reviews which is so crazy to me. i never would've expected that kind of reception for our little game and when i say it has been so motivating for alaris!!! u dont even know!!!

thank you again for all the kind words---i know you are all Sick of me talking about it but i don't know how else to express my gratitude <3 it means so much to me ;_;

I wanted to make sure I inserted an official section for it in the Devlog just to really thank you all for the support. But with that, I shall get into the updates!

But not before a quick belated happy birthday to Fenir!

Writing

I posted it earlier this week, but I HAVE!!! THE MOST EXCITING NEWS!!! At least for me.

I FINISHED DRUK'S FIRST DRAFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We all know how long this has been in the making. I've been talking about his route for what feels like an eternity. Evidently, it's Very Normal to experience burnout, struggles with motivation, creative ruts, etc. etc. at this point in development. The initial and final stages of development are easier because your motivation is up. In the beginning, it's like Wow!! This is Fun!! And towards the end, it's like Wow!!! I actually Fckn Made It!!!!

And so the middle part of development, aka the stage I just entered with Druk's route, is the slog.

Now that I've overcome that initial hurdle, while I'm not near the end of development, I do feel like I will have a better handle of progress on the following routes since I have a better set of expectations and tools on how to get through this stage (compared to when I initially started Druk's route, and I was like what are all these Feelings?? Why am I Struggling so much??).

That being said, WE ARE OVER HALFWAY DONE WITH THE SCRIPT! It currently stands at 200k words including the demo, and with how each of the routes have been shaping up, we have about 150k left to go. Wow!!!!! It is crazy to know I've written that much for Alaris, and this feels like such an exciting milestone to know that I'm over halfway there for the script!

We also have just about wrapped up Fenir's developmental edits, so that makes Kayn and Fenir's foundational versions of their routes done (all that would be left at this point is line tweaking and/or revisions based on beta feedback)!! Overall, this was a really exciting month for writing updates, and I'm so happy to feel back on track with Alaris development <3 I also finished my dissertation proposal in case anyone is keeping track of that HEEHOO

Art

Most of my attention for art was (un?)fortunately on Intertwine this month AGAIN. I really had anticipated being able to dive right into Alaris and irl work this month after Otojam ended. But the reception to Intertwine made it so I needed to dedicate some time to "marketing" artwork aka the artwork I like to make when reaching certain milestones of support (e.g., 1k downloads, etc.). Obviously these aren't necessary, but I like to show my thanks and appreciation in some way, and the artwork is what feels best conveys my gratitude.

Because we hit milestones relatively quickly, I ended up having to make those pieces faster than I anticipated prior to release. So I spent the first half of this month mostly on intertwine "promotional/apprecation" artwork. Near the tail end of this month though, I've prioritized Alaris artwork and have made progress on both the Kickstarter physical rewards and some CG sketches!

sneaky peeky of pretty mermay Aisa

Vui continues to hit it out of the park with the backgrounds. Most of them are spoilers at this point. But I do have one that isn't too bad of a spoiler! And because you all have been so supportive and patient with me, I show hehe

vui and his bg mastery: a preview of the dragon springs

The demo mentions dragon springs (I..... think......... LMAO), and here is a preview of what those dragon springs can look like. Wonder what the context will be in which we visit them, teehee! I'm in love with the way Vui brings the fantasy world of Alaris to life. I am so grateful for him ^^

Market Research

My wrist was feeling ~delicate~ this month due to Otojam crunch and then post-release pieces. So I don't have any actual art pieces to showcase this month for market research. I did play Otojam games and started Cupid Parasite (ryuki and allan my beloveds). But crescence's wrist needs to relax LOL. So no art pieces more than necessary for this month!

I will send some love to my besties over at Ravenstar Games though! If you haven't heard, they have a game currently in development called Lost in Limbo. It looks sick as hell, and the team is unbelievable talented and hardworking. This month to celebrate Barbie, they were able to sneak this promotional piece in, even while working on their Master's ((Do you see...... a familiar group of people..... heh))

Alaris x Lost in Limbo x Barbie the collaboration of the century

That's all from me for now. Thank you again for all the support and love on Intertwine! I've truly cherished all the fanwork, reviews, kind messages, etc.

That being said, while it was a bit of a struggle getting back returning to the Alaris world initially (I was literally like what.... was the plot of this again... LMAOsazodujf), it's been so rewarding to return to my OG gang. The intertwine release and return to Alaris work has also been strangely sentimental since it's reminded me how far I've come in the two years I've been in this dev Thang. As always thank you for your continued support (and for supporting Alaris since it's inception when I was a Wee Dev), and I look forward to bringing you more updates in the future <3

See you all next month, and stay safe!

[crystalized-dreams]

So, despite being on vacation, I actually managed to finish several of my big goals recently. For one, I got the last several villagers I needed hosted to have all 40 currently available:

Nothing too special happens with the 40th which makes me feel it’s even more likely they’ll add more in the future:

I also managed to make the final amenity: I still need to upgrade them all, of course, but that’s a low priority. I’l probably work on fully upgrading the Merry-Go-Round first and then do the others whenever I have enough.

I managed to get Bitty and Sandy high enough for their crafting items so now thanks to them and Fauna, I’ve gotten some of the items I’ve wanted most:

And I finally caught an Emperor Butterfly! So, now I’ve caught at least one of each rare.

I also finished all current stretch goals. Nothing special happens when you do so I’m sure more will be added eventually there as well.

I haven’t quite decided my next goals though. I think I mainly want to try and gather more stuff up, though, it’s still a bit frustrating with the inventory slot issues. While inventory limits are a thing in normal AC, AC isn’t as resource-heavy as this game and you can drop things on the floor or fill your house or do a lot of things which are not an option in this game whatsoever.

I’m also going to work on unlocking all the crafting recipes for each villager and then slowly work on getting each to level 20. I’d love to get Peanut to level 20 first since she’s the only one of my favorites currently in the game. And I really want to work on fully upgrading my RV even if it doesn’t do much–I need 150K for my current expansion and the next and final two apparently cost 200K and 250K respectively so I need… 600K to pay them all off and I wish I was better at earning bells 😦

I just really want to make an RV and Camp I’m proud of. I still haven’t really made up my mind with how I want it to look and I’m struggling a lot with it–the randomness of the items available (and not many that really flow together well in my opinion) just makes it even harder.

That said, I still think the game can definitely use some quality of life improvements and re-evaluate some of the balancing. 20 Leaf Tickets for 1 Essence or to increase your inventory by 5 slots feels like a lot. I can at least understand the 15 for nets and honey since it gives you 10 things so that’s less than 2 per catch. On the otherhand, I still get a bit frustrated when I get things like this: The “rare” fish don’t seem very rare or even uncommon when I get more of them than any of the “common” fish including the one I even bought that net for…

I wish I could easily give my friends Kudos–even just a “send to all” button. Unfortunately, it’s just super slow right now and there’s no real benefit from it. The only benefit Kudos give is for yourself and only however many you need for the daily. Your friends get nothing from it beyond the little notification that they received one. And loading takes long enough between just clicking your friend and loading their camp. It’s just long and convoluted and lacks any actual pay-off for anyone beyond the daily goal. The friend system in general is just kind of lacking–I wish I could sell all kinds of things to my friends, not just gatherables.

Similarly, looking at people’s markets is also a pain due to more loading and not even always seeing their full market when you click the user… To make things worse for both this and Kudos giving is the organization of the Friend’s list. They organize it by “Last online/played” time which is great for clearing out your friends list (after all, there is a limit of 100), but makes it very hard to keep track of who you checked already and who you didn’t since you get scrolled back to the start every single time you click someone.

I mean, even the Quarry lending a hand requests–while the last online works great for who to send to (though, a “send to all” button would be amazing), it’s annoying to scroll through and look for shovels to lend the hand to everyone. There should be a separate thing to see who sent requests or even an Accept all button at the top.

Speaking of Accept alls… Not only do you need to accept quests manually, you then need to claim your gits from the mailbox. You have to do this for the Quarry too to receive your rewards. And it’s just… why? Why not just give them to you when you finish like how villagers give you items? It’s just a really odd choice.

And on the subject of the quarry… I do think there should be more than one free one available a day. Maybe just require it to be 5 different friends who need to accept each time or something. Similarly, it’d be nice if you could pay to “make up” for people–so like 12 if you only got two friends to help and still need three more slots filled.

Organization in general with the game is a pain. Furniture and Clothing is just listed by what you got most recently… Which can make it hard to check if you’ve already bought something. Similarly, the Catalog also has very… unique ways it decided to categorize everything which makes it all the more confusing. It’s very hard to keep track of things and I wish there were better organizational systems or even the shop keepers mentioning if you bought something previously.

Finally, I have mixed feelings on the shopping system. I can deal with just 3 items, but I kind of wish that: 1. They refreshed every 3 hours instead of every 6 hours (Similarly, it’d be nice if fruit was on that schedule too instead of 3 hours from when you last shook it… so if you shook it an hour before rollover, it’d only have an hour left to grow…) 2. Kicks, Labelle, and Sable & Mabel were always there along with Timmy and Tommy. The small stock is hard enough without those three shops constantly swapping out.

I’d love if we could upgrade the shops at some point to maybe make it so they can be around more or have more for sale at a time. Crafting clothes is clearly coming soon as the menu outright says to:

Of course, while things may seem small now–just 40 villagers, about 300 pieces of furniture, about 160 pieces of clothing (I demand more dresses), and only 13 Amenities, more is clearly coming besides what I just mentioned above. I mean, one of first things they showed us in the direct? Cabana furniture isn’t in yet and yet, there’s the lamp. Same goes for the Cabin furniture and Cabin Couch. More wallpaper and flooring than we have right now is shown throughout the Direct as well. #gallery-0-9 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-9 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-9 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-9 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Of those, we only have the Lovely Wallpaper and the two carpets.

Then there’s things we don’t really have more info on like Gardening and Holiday-furniture–both Christmas based and some more Japanese Cultural based ones. It’s very likely we’ll see some kind of events in the future. #gallery-0-10 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-10 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-10 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-10 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

So, I’m excited to see what’s to come and considering the amount of Quality of Life adjustments they made to Fire Emblem Heroes, I’ll keep my hopes up. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Days 11-14 and Discussing Upcoming Features & Other Rambling So, despite being on vacation, I actually managed to finish several of my big goals recently. For one, I got the last several villagers I needed hosted to have all 40 currently available: